Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [144]
I was standing beside the door at the top of the steps, hands loose at my sides, trying to look bodyguardish, and probably failing. My little blue and black skirt outfit, complete with high heeled boots, didn’t look much like security detail.
“Security,” he said smiling, and signing Raven-hair’s book.
“She doesn’t look like security,” the brunette said.
“I’m new,” I said.
Brunette didn’t look like she believed me. She crossed her arms underneath her small, tight breasts and glared at me.
I smiled back sweetly.
That deepened her scowl and gave her little lines between her eyebrows. I felt better.
Nathaniel gave me a little flicker of a look that said as clearly as if he’d spoken, “Be nice.” I was nice. I smiled and stood and let the blondes touch his arms, his back, but when one of them patted his ass, that was it.
I pushed away from the wall, and said, “Ladies, Brandon here needs to get inside and prepare for his performance.” I managed to keep smiling even when one of the blondes threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Then the other blonde grabbed him and kissed him on the other cheek.
I grabbed his arm and moved him back far enough so I could open the door. The two women were still clinging to him. Raven-hair was blushing, and the brunette was still scowling at me. I kept my smile in place, though it felt more like a grimace.
Nathaniel said, “Beth Ann, Patty, if you don’t let me go, I can’t get on stage.”
“Stay out here with us, and we wouldn’t care,” one of them said.
I glanced behind me and saw a black-shirted man. It was Buzz, the vamp that usually worked the door here. He had the same black crew cut that he had always had, small pale eyes, and more muscles than you should need as a dead man. His black shirt said GUILTY PLEASURES SECURITY in red letters. I didn’t usually like Buzz much, but tonight I was glad to see him. Help had arrived.
I could have cleared the steps if I was allowed to be mean, but having to be nice at the same time I was trying to be firm was beyond me. My skill set simply did not include it.
He forced his face into a smile before the women behind me could see him clearly. He was the newly dead, around twenty years, which meant he looked very alive for a dead man. Most humans wouldn’t have spotted him in a crowd. Most people think that vamps gain the ability to pass for human, but that’s never been my experience. Older is less human, just better at the mind games so humans don’t notice.
“Ladies, you’re not supposed to be back here,” Buzz cajoled. He moved past me, and his chest was so muscle-bound that it looked like there wasn’t room for all of us and his upper body to stand on that small landing.
The brunette said, “Is she really security?”
“If that’s what she said,” he said in the same good-fellow-well-met voice. He was cheerfully extracting Nathaniel from the blondes. He managed to make a game of it, and they spilled around Buzz’s muscular body, as if to say, if they couldn’t cling to Nathaniel, any male would do. Of course, from the sound of the joking conversation, the blondes knew Buzz, too.
Raven-hair had backed down the steps, eyes a little wide. She didn’t want to play. It made me think better of her.
I drew Nathaniel in through the open door, with the brunette giving me a murderous glare. She was taking this way too personally. It was sort of unnerving. Nathaniel and I were safely through the door, but I didn’t like closing it and leaving Buzz out there alone. I mean, he’d helped us. What were the rules about security guards? Did they get protected, too, or just the dancers and customers? If you cut a security guard did he not bleed? So I stood there uncertainly with Nathaniel. It was Nathaniel who gently closed the door.
“Buzz will be fine, he knows how to talk to them.”
“What, you read my mind?”
He smiled. “No, I just know you. He helped us, and now you feel obligated.”
I fought the urge to squirm or shuffle my feet. I hated when anyone figured me out that clearly. Was I that transparent? Apparently so.
I decided